Triplet

Ravagin warned. "I don't suppose anyone thought to mention those to you?"

"No, I know about them, thank you," Danae ground out. "All right, then—let's hear how you would handle it."

"Oh, about the way you described," he shrugged. "But knowing how dry the Cairn Mounds are, I would have added a geas onto the nixie's invocation to put it more firmly under my control."

"I was told not to use a geas unless absolutely necessary," Danae said stiffly. "They said the spirits don't react well to them."

"No, they don't," Ravagin nodded. "But premature releases are usually worse—the damn thing can sometimes take a swipe at you before it vanishes."

"So how do you know which is the better risk?"

"Experience, of course. Which was the point I was trying to make in the first place."

She bristled. "Are you telling me that I'm not to use any spells unless you clear them in advance?

Because if you are, you can just—"

"Whoa, Danae—take it easy," he cut in, holding his hands palm outward toward her. "I never said anything of the sort. All I'm trying to do is let you know that things on Karyx aren't nearly as laser cut as those little six-week fact-stuffing courses pretend. Karyx's spirit magic is every bit as layered and complex as Shamsheer's technological magic, with the added danger of the spirits turning on you if you aren't careful. You've already shown yourself willing to disobey orders you don't especially want to follow—I'm trying to impress upon you the fact that pulling that stunt here could literally get you burned alive."

"Consider me suitably impressed," Danae growled. "I suppose this means we're going to have to spend the night in the way house?"

"Oh, for—" Ravagin exhaled in thinly veiled disgust. "All right—the hell with it. You want to hit Karyx tonight, fine; we'll hit Karyx tonight. It'd serve you right if you had to go back to Threshold with a withered arm and explain how you asked for the most experienced Courier and then argued every damn decision with him."

Without waiting for a reply, he twisted back around. "Sky-plane: follow my mark. Mark."

Behind him, Danae closed her eyes and let her mouth twist with some disgust of her own. He was right—she was giving him far too much of a hard time... and knowing why she was doing so was unfortunately no excuse. She was an adult, and was supposed to be able to suppress such childish reactions.

Still, the whole thing had shown her something new about Ravagin, too. He did indeed know he'd been specifically asked for... and it was abundantly clear that he wasn't feeling overly flattered by the request. Well, then, to hell with him, too, she grumbled to herself. If she had to show her father, Hart, and Ravagin too that she was capable of taking care of herself, then that was exactly what she would do.

And if they didn't like the consequences, then that was their hard luck.

An hour later, they reached the Tu

From the outside it looked virtually the same as both the Threshold and Shamsheer ends of the first Tu

At Ravagin's command the sky-plane dropped down to hover a meter off the ground in front of the Tu

Danae took a deep breath as she carefully stood up and eased the kinks out of her legs. The forest breezes—no longer held back now by the sky-plane's edge barrier—played about her hair, bringing along with them an unusual and tantalizing mixture of aromas. She sniffed cautiously, trying without success to identify them.

"Let's get moving," Ravagin said, and she turned to see him already a meter or so inside the Tu

But no animals had taken up lodging in the Tu

"I know the routine," Danae growled. Her bodice's top fastener had broken that morning while she was dressing, and now her jury-rigged replacement was refusing to come loose. Gritting her teeth, she tugged at it, first gently, then with more and more force—

"Need any help?"

"I'll get it," she snapped. "It's just—stuck—a little..."

"Move your hands," he sighed. "Come on—move them."

She obeyed, a hot flush of embarrassment flooding her face as he brought the firefly near her chin and examined her handiwork. With a grunt, he retrieved his knife from the locker. "Hold real still," he said, teasing the knot delicately with the tip... and a moment later she felt it come open.

"Thanks," she muttered, turning her back on him and starting on the rest of the fastenings.

They finished the rest of their disrobing in silence. "Give me your hand," Ravagin said as he shut off the firefly's glow and closed the locker. "Come on, come on—it's not getting any earlier out there."

"I want to try it by myself this time," Danae told him shortly.

Even in total darkness she could practically see him grimacing. "All right," he sighed. "But stay close."

They set off around the curve, Danae following the slap of Ravagin's footsteps. The telefold, when they passed it, wasn't the surprise it had been the first time and she managed to keep her feet and most of her balance. "Well, that wasn't so bad—" she began.

And abruptly, a loud voice split the silence of the Tu

Chapter 10

It wasn't until the echoes of his shout were begi

He broke off as a flicker of glow-fire appeared in front of him. "I am here, as you summoned," it said in a squeaky, almost unintelligible voice.

"Scout down the Tu

The glow-fire flared momentarily and vanished. "The lockers are over here," Ravagin told Danae, turning around and reaching out a hand to find her.

"You could have warned me before you shouted like that," her voice came from his right. Oddly enough, she didn't seem upset.

"Yeah. Sorry." Stepping to the Tu

"No," she said, almost too quickly. Her hand found his, took the clothes, and retreated. Keeping an eye out for the sprite's return, Ravagin shook out the tunic and trousers to make sure no insects had taken up residence there and began to dress.